Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Alexander: The focus of our work at the Department for International Development is not dictated by the majority religious views of any one country but the requirements of the country for support in tackling poverty. We are working with Governments in a number of different countries; the hon. Gentleman mentioned Afghanistan, and we have contributed about £60 million to the Afghanistan reconstruction trust fund specifically for education. Where we are working we are in regular dialogue with Governments about improving the lot and opportunity of young girls in particular. To take one example, today about one in six of young girls around the world not in education are in northern Nigeria. That is why we are engaged in dialogue with the Nigerian authorities to see how we can extend opportunities to young girls and the disabled; it is necessary to get them into education if we are to see the progress that we want on the millennium development goals.

Andrew Murrison: Will the Minister comment on the opportunity cost to the goal of universal primary education of the Government's generosity to small-scale projects in emerging super-economies? Does he agree that that money might be better focused on areas of the world that are not blessed with natural resources or emerging super-economies of the sort that we see in China or indeed, even in India?

Douglas Alexander: China continues to be afflicted by considerable challenges in terms of poverty reduction, notwithstanding the welcome growth of its economy in recent years. That is why we continue to work in China, although we are due to close our bilateral programme shortly. We are continuing to work there partly because any serious assessment of the role of China in Africa recognises that now is exactly the time to try to exert influence over the Chinese authorities to ensure that their engagement with the continent of Africa in providing infrastructure and new opportunities is benign in the years ahead.

Richard Burden: One of the things that most disrupts the effective dispersal of aid is conflict. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned the additional support being given in the DRC; could the Under-Secretary say a bit more about what we are doing to ensure effective humanitarian aid access in that part of the world?

John Leech: May I add my condolences to the family of the dead soldier?
	Over the next few weeks, the residents of Greater Manchester will have the opportunity to vote in the referendum on introducing congestion charging in return for £1.5 billion Government investment in public transport. Many people support road pricing but do not support the scheme. Will the Prime Minister— [ Interruption. ]

Gordon Brown: I know that the voting paper has options for a "Yes" vote and a "No" vote, but I am afraid that there is no option for a "Don't know" vote. In the event of a "No" vote, it would be up to Greater Manchester authorities to decide whether they wanted to do further work on the proposals. The Government are in principle prepared to contribute, as he has said, up to £1.5 billion towards the Greater Manchester package, but that is dependent on the broad scope and nature of the package remaining the same. If Greater Manchester came back with a revised proposition, we would need to assess it on its merits.

Gordon Brown: That was the only time I have ever heard the right hon. Gentleman quoting the European Commission. I have to tell him that the reason we are better prepared than other countries is that we have had low interest rates for years, we are now getting inflation down and it will come down further next year; we have high levels of employment—higher than in almost every other major industrial country, and we can come through this. At the same time, corporate balance sheets are strong outside the financial sector, and they are not in the position that they were in when the right hon. Gentleman was the adviser to the Chancellor in 1992. I also have to tell him that we are taking the long-term decisions for this country—on nuclear power, energy, infrastructure and planning—but we are not supported by the Conservative party.

David Cameron: The Prime Minister cannot hide from this: if we are better prepared, why is our recession forecast to be deeper? For years, he stood there reading out lists of countries that he told us we were beating. Yet according to the Commission, our recession next year will be worse than in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Greece or the United States. In fact, there are just two countries that we will do better than—Estonia and Latvia. They escaped the grip of Stalin—we are still in it. Just this weekend, the Prime Minister told people once again that Britain was "better prepared". Why did he get it wrong?

David Cameron: The IMF repeatedly warned this Government about the high levels of both personal and Government debt. I do not know why the Prime Minister did not just agree with my question, because this is what he said to the Labour conference in 1995.  [Interruption.] It is another quote, and perhaps Labour Members would like to listen to it. These were the great words of the leader.  [Interruption.] Why do not Labour Members listen for a change?  [Interruption.]

David Cameron: The Prime Minister says that I have in some way misrepresented what Lord Myners said. Let me explain exactly what he said. In the other place, Lord Lea asked him:
	"If we are going to hold inquiries, do we not need a wider public inquiry?"
	Lord Myners replied:
	"My Lords, I agree with my noble friend."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 3 November 2008; Vol. 705, c. 16.]
	That is what he said.  [Interruption.] That is the whole thing. He said we should have a public inquiry, and we should have one. Is not the truth that in Britain people are losing their homes, small businesses are closing, unemployment is rising and manufacturing output is falling again and that by refusing to hold a public inquiry, the Prime Minister is yet again demonstrating that he cannot provide the change people want? On the day the American people voted for change, are not people in this country entitled to ask how much longer they will have to put up with more of the same from a Government who have failed?

Gordon Brown: I announced in July that, as we completed our mission in Iraq, there will be a fundamental change in what our troops do in the first half of next year. We have, of course, completed a lot of work in training the Iraqi forces, and we will continue to do that until completion. We wish to pass control of the airport across to Iraqi authorities. We wish to help to speed up economic development in Basra, and we wish to see the local elections take place. We have moved from a role in combat to one of overwatch, and we will have a further fundamental change of mission next year.

Gordon Brown: We had a report done by the ombudsman and there will be a statement on that soon.

Gerald Howarth: Will the Minister accept that when Major Morley was forced to deploy his troops in Snatch Land Rovers, he was given no choice, contrary to all the ministerial assurances given to commanders in the field that they would have whatever equipment they required?

Gordon Brown: That was a sad incident involving the deaths of young people serving our country. However, in recent years, we have done our best to provide the necessary equipment. We have spent more than £1 billion on new vehicles for operations. In 2006, we ordered 108 Mastiffs and, in 2007, took steps to increase vehicle numbers. We ordered 150 Ridgebacks and the first Jackals as part of a constant review of capability. In June, operational commanders were asked by the Defence Minister to look again at our vehicle options. More armoured vehicles were decided upon, and last week we were able to announce the purchase of nearly 700 vehicles and an upgrade of more than 200 vehicles. That is a total of 1,200 new vehicles, and that is why the Conservative Chairman of the Defence Committee said:
	"The personal equipment that our Armed Forces now have is better than it's ever been."

Dennis Skinner: Is it not quite remarkable that Governments of the left, right and centre have adopted our policy of taking over banks and recapitalising them? Not only are we fixing our own roof here in Britain, but roofs around the world.

James Duddridge: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to remove restrictions on the format of vehicle registration marks; and for connected purposes.
	The Bill is deregulatory, revenue-raising and populist. It would give people the ability to choose from a much wider variety of letter and number combinations on their licence plates, which would mean that it was possible to purchase a licence plate that spelt out a word exactly as it reads in the English language. The Bill would give people greater choice and bring in additional millions of pounds for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.
	I shall outline the background to registration plates, demonstrating that the change is very much in keeping with previous changes, and the type of numbers that could be sold under the Bill; examine the enormous amount of money that would be raised and how some of it could be spent; and deal with some of the valid objections to the Bill, which I believe can be overcome.
	Vehicle registration licence plates were introduced in 1903, both as a road safety measure and a revenue-collecting measure. Things developed quickly, from counties allocating numbers—for example, Lancashire allocated 1, 2, 3 and so on—to the need for larger numbers, such as AA1, AA2 and AA3. It was only in 1970 that the DVLA was created and all number plates were centralised.
	There have been many changes, the most significant of which may have been in 1989, when a much wider range of letter and number combinations was made available. That was a truly innovative move, but looking back, we can see that it may have been far too cautious. The Bill builds on the work of 1989 and the work of Ministers subsequently.
	I shall give some examples of plates that are sold at present and plates that could be sold, so as to compare the two. At present, if I had the money and there was a seller, it would be permissible for me to buy E5 5EX—Essex—but not ESSEX. It would be permissible for me to buy JPD1, but not JPD. I could buy J4 MES, but not JAMES, or S44 FND—Sarfend—but not SOUTHEND in full, which seems completely ridiculous. There could be commercial uses, such as ASDA 1, ASDA 2 or ASDA 3 on lorries. Plumbers could advertise, and there are a number of other examples.
	I have consulted widely on the Bill and I particularly thank Richard Kitchen, the policy director of the DVLA, the Department for Transport and a large number of ex-Ministers. In fact, most of the people sponsoring and supporting the Bill are ex-Ministers who speak fondly of some of the modest changes they would have made to deregulate the marketplace. They all told me they wished they had done more at the time—[Hon. Members: "Ah."] I shall come to that.
	I have spoken to the police, the Association of Chief Police Officers and manufacturers of automatic number plate recognition systems, and I shall deal with some of their objections. I have also spoken to the Cherished Numbers Dealers Association—a very good organisation—and, crucially, Roger Williams, who was very helpful, particularly in the early stages. He was one of the DVLA officials who advised former Ministers and he has been instrumental in helping me to develop the Bill, as have other driving organisations such as the AA and members of the CNDA, who both sell registration plates as intermediaries and buy them as investments. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), with whom I have discussed these matters. He is already working on similar issues and I hope the Bill gives him further encouragement to be bold, release a large range of numbers and raise a large amount of money.
	The House of Commons Library has set out the amount raised since 1989: £1.3 billion. Last year, more than 250,000 registration plates were put on the marketplace, raising £87 million. They tend to be sold by auction, and the September auction raised about £3 million. Some of that money is spent on DVLA costs and administration, and the rest goes to the Treasury. Organisations such as the AA have suggested that some of the additional money raised under the Bill, which could be as much as £1 billion over the next 10 years, should be used for road safety measures and to deal with some of issues relating to automatic number plate recognition that I shall address.
	The original business case in the lead-up to the 1989 change anticipated that a break-even figure of £250,000 would be raised. Single registration plates already raise that amount, and I suspect that we could raise significantly more than even my quite big estimate of an extra £1 billion over 10 years. Online sales are growing at a dramatic rate; ebaymotors.co.uk reported a 23 per cent. increase in sales in 2007, so we are talking about a big marketplace.
	I hope that my Bill is not opposed, but I want to talk about some of the potential objections to it, so that we can see how they could be dealt with. The DVLA went through my objections with me, and put them in the category of objections that could, and needed to, be dealt with before we could progress. However, there is an appetite to make progress. By far and away the most serious considerations are those raised by ACPO, the police, the security services and the Home Office about automatic number plate recognition, which is used to counter terrorism. Those problems must be overcome before the Bill progresses.
	About 95 per cent. of numbers can be recognised by automatic number plate recognition. It is difficult technology if the car is dirty, if the font has been changed in any way, if a reflective material has been put on the plate, and if the screws are in the wrong place. Crucially, my Bill does not say that we should change anything in the manufacture, construction, design, font or display of number plates, except that it would remove the space. That would allow cherished number plates such as S44 FND to have no space in them, as a space would mean that they lost some of their value.
	The objections need to be overcome, but there is a lot of money in the pot to deal with them. Some of the money should go not to the Treasury or the DVLA, but to the automatic number plate recognition people, who would then work alongside the Home Office to sort out some of the problems. That would be good for road safety and for counter-terrorism measures. The 5 per cent. of number plates that cannot be recognised are partly owned by people who are trying to be a bit flashy with their number plates, but that disguises the existence of slightly more sinister individuals—potentially terrorists or more serious criminals.
	It has been pointed out to me that our number plates are recognisable around Europe, but they will still have the yellow background and the Union Jack. I think that the Minister has received representations about our using other flags, too. The Department for Transport and the Cherished Numbers Dealers Association have pointed out that there is a recession, and that sometimes number plates are the first thing to be sold, or not bought, in a recession. That may affect the timing of the roll-out of the Bill, but it should not affect the Bill or the principle behind it. There is the issue of rude and offensive language on number plates, but that issue is there already, and it is dealt with satisfactorily.
	There are costs associated with the changes; the DVLA estimates them at about £20 million. That seems a lot of money, but even so, the number plate 51 NGH, which is close to spelling "Singh", was just brought on to the market, and it went for more than £250,000. MR SINGH and DR SINGH, or the equivalents in the currently legal plates, will probably go for similar amounts, so we are looking at raising almost £1 million without even having sold SINGH as a number plate. Given what could be done, £20 million is really quite a small number.
	It is also pointed out that there could be confusion between J4 MES and JAMES, but there could be that same confusion between A and 4 in normal number plates. That is not a major issue for number plate recognition. In fact, people who have such number plates want to be recognised, and that will make the numbers more easily recognised. There is also the issue of existing investments. It is important that we drip-feed registration plates into the marketplace; JAMES should not be sold in the same year as JIM, JIMMY or JIMBO, just as the introduction of the 51 NGH plates has been delayed over time.
	We are not talking about rich people. In times of recession, perhaps we should be thinking of those who are less well-off, but we have to remember that, in a way, we are talking about a form of voluntary taxation. If someone wants to pay £300,000 for JAMES, that is absolutely acceptable.
	There are a number of other points that could be raised, but this is a good Bill, and I am sure that the Minister will want to take it forward. I recommend it to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by James Duddridge, Dr. Stephen Ladyman, Sir George Young, Peter Bottomley, Mr. Christopher Chope, Mr. Andrew Smith, Richard Ottaway, Mr. Alistair Carmichael and Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Kitty Ussher: The hon. Gentleman has referred to a number of broad so-called facts. We have decided to put the onus and legal requirement on to local authorities to ensure that sufficient child care is available in their areas. The process will be iterative. If he can see particular lack of supply in a particular area, he should raise that with the local authority. We are ensuring, with Jobcentre Plus, that there is a continuous feedback loop so that if a lone parent or any parent says, "I cannot take that job because no child care is available," they will be challenged by the Jobcentre Plus adviser. If what the parent says is accepted, the local authority will be challenged by national Government. We are doing what the hon. Gentleman suggests on an ongoing basis. There is no doubt that far more child care places are available now than 10 years ago, because we have grasped the issue and are doing everything we can to ensure real choices for parents as they decide how they wish to organise their lives.
	Finally, I want to say a few words on what the current economic situation means for the direction of our welfare reform. To those who say that we should surrender to the tides of the current economic situation and relax our direction of travel I say that we will not give up on the people of this country, who rightly expect us to support them through these difficult times. Yes, unemployment is rising—there is no denying that. The number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance has been rising since the beginning of 2008, with the last figures going up by just over 30,000.
	That increase is the net result of 260,000 people entering claimant unemployment and nearly 230,000 people leaving jobseeker's allowance. The situation is dynamic. Even in these difficult times, people are leaving unemployment to restart work. Every working day, Jobcentre Plus helps 5,400 people into work. Furthermore, people are leaving unemployment faster than they used to—a direct result of the more active, supportive regime developed for jobseekers. Although the numbers starting to claim JSA have risen and may rise further, our aim is to help as many people as possible find their next job as quickly as possible.
	In an economic slowdown we need to do more, not less, to keep people as close as possible to the labour market. According to the latest figures, there are 600,000 vacancies in the economy right now. We want to prepare everyone to get those jobs and we want more people to get more jobs as more jobs become available. That means having active labour market policies keeping more people as near as possible to work-related activities. The alternative is to let people sink.
	Unlike the last Conservative Government, we are not shifting people away from the labour market to get them off the books and make unemployment look lower than it is—quite the opposite. We are moving people closer to the jobs market and more people on to JSA, because more people will then have more opportunities to leave JSA and go into work. Other things being equal, we estimate that our reforms to lone parent benefits will increase the JSA count by about 80,000 by 2010-11. Our reforms to the ESA will also add several thousand each year in the next two to three years, before any effects of the economic downturn are taken into account.
	We need to learn the lessons from previous slowdowns and from overseas. They are: first, to increase support and not relax conditionality; secondly, not to move people on to inactive benefits; and thirdly to maintain efforts to reduce inactivity. We are not giving up. We are not surrendering to the doom and gloom merchants who say that the force of economic change means that we should leave people to perish in the storm. We are holding true to our aspiration of an 80 per cent. employment rate and standing by our commitment to ensure that by 2025 disabled people are respected and included as equal members of society.

Mark Harper: I have two points in response to that. First, I mentioned the figure because at a time when he have seen growth in the number of migrant workers getting jobs, we still have, as the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Burnley, acknowledged, nearly 5 million British-born people on out-of-work benefits, and we want to ensure that they can share in economic growth. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman is a little behind the curve. If he had listened to what the Minister for Borders and Immigration said, he would have noted that it is the Government's policy to restrict the number of people coming into this country, but it is simply the case that their policies to date have not worked.

Mark Harper: Let me finish my point. The Red Book makes it clear that the Government will only explore the ideas. Given that the economy is contracting, that, next year, we will experience negative growth in every quarter, that 164,000 people have lost their jobs in the last quarter and that the position will get worse, it is a time for stepping up the help and support that we need to provide. That will not be done unless the funding is in place. When will the Government accept David Freud's recommendations to allow benefit savings to be used in full to help fund the necessary support?

Mark Harper: The Secretary of State made it clear in the Budget debate that he wanted to move much faster. It is clear from the Red Book that he has been blocked from doing so by the Treasury. If the Minister is comfortable with the scale of the help and support that the Government will be able to provide in the recession, that shows a worrying complacency. Both he and his hon. Friends will regret that lack of ambition and the fact that the Government are not moving fast enough to make the proposal work.
	Another crucial issue for getting people into work will be adopting the right commissioning strategy for welfare programmes. The current approach appears to be tilting the balance in favour of larger volume providers, at the expense of those smaller, specialist providers, who help some of those furthest from the labour market. That is a cause for concern. The Government need to think again and ensure that the most vulnerable are not parked to one side or ignored by providers. We need to refocus our efforts on what is best for the thousands of people who need our help to get into work and give them the support that they need, rather than risk the silo approach of having a small number of excessively large providers.
	The Social Market Foundation recently published a comprehensive report into the issue, which said that "it is unlikely that" the flexible new deal
	"will deliver the kind of step-change in performance that the government hopes for. The new programme is therefore in danger of failing to live up to its theoretical potential."
	The Social Market Foundation worked closely with the Department on its report. It is therefore disappointing that, instead of taking the report's warnings seriously, the Department's representative tried to rubbish it at a recent conference. The Government should pay attention to such concerns. Indeed, those bidding for such contracts or thinking of doing so have expressed many concerns to the Government, which they should take seriously.
	Before I finish, I want to ask the Minister one or two questions that he can perhaps respond to when he winds up. My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell recently met the Terence Higgins Trust, which raised concerns about the review of the special rules for those with HIV. The special rule benefits were introduced at a time when contracting HIV was expected to lead to rapid death. Owing to very welcome medical advances, however, some people have been on such benefits for a decade or more.
	As a result of the special rules review, one in five people with HIV on such benefits have had their award removed and one in three have had it reduced and are expected to return to the workplace. That is absolutely right, but the Terence Higgins Trust is concerned that the support for such people to return to work is not adequate, as they have been moved on to jobseeker's allowance only and are not receiving the proper help that they require. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister explained what support those people, who have been out of the workplace for perhaps a decade or more and who are coping with a highly stigmatised condition that requires ongoing medical treatment, will receive to return to work.
	In closing, I want briefly to touch on the employment and support allowance, which the Minister mentioned in her opening speech and which I debated with her hon. Friend, the other Minister present, in a Committee on the regulations. We agree with the broad thrust of the employment and support allowance. I also thank the Minister for writing to the Chairman of that Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), to address some of the issues raised that he did not have time to deal with in Committee. As the Minister said, the previous system focused too much on what people could not do, as opposed to what they can do. We welcome that change.
	Unfortunately, however, we are concerned that ESA does not live up to the reassurances that we were given. The Government have broken their promises on the ESA rates, which are lower than they promised. We raised concerns that the system favours people with fewer national insurance contributions and penalises those who have worked—that is, those on the contribution-based ESA, rather than the income-based ESA. The Minister acknowledged that problem in his letter to the Committee, but said that it applied to only relatively small numbers of people. It might therefore be helpful if he said how many people, of those going on to ESA, he expects to be on the contribution-based ESA and how many on the income-based ESA.
	I also tabled a written question, which was due for answer on 17 October, to ask
	"whether the Disability and Work Division's Employment and Support Allowance design team has undertaken an impact assessment"
	into the introduction of that benefit. Despite receiving a holding answer, I am still awaiting the substantive answer. Perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to prod his officials into action, unless of course the answer is awaiting his approval. I also tabled a further question for the Secretary of State, to which an answer was due on 10 September, to ask
	"from which part of his Department's budget"
	the very welcome increase in the access to work budget would be drawn. A holding answer has been received, but a substantive answer, nearly two months later, has not. I should therefore be grateful if the Minister chased that up.
	In conclusion, as we enter stormy economic waters, work and welfare policy will become ever more pressing. The Government's record on welfare reform has been characterised more by disappointment than by real reform. Many thousands of people will look to the Government for the right support in getting into or returning to work. Should the Government look to accelerate the implementation of the Freud proposals, with that change to the DEL-AME rules, so that the benefit savings can be used to help people get into work sooner rather than later, we will support them. It would have been a lot easier to reform the welfare system in the good years, but that opportunity was squandered. It will be more difficult to do so now that we face difficult economic times. However, I agree with the Minister that it is hugely important that we do so.

John Penrose: I take on board the hon. Lady's point about the importance of timing the intervention correctly. However, does she agree that just doing that is not enough, but that when the intervention comes, it may be necessary to have a different scale of intervention for people who have multiple barriers between themselves and the job market? There is great concern that the Government's proposals offer a flat-rate budget for each jobseeker regardless of the scale of the difficulties they face. Many countries—such as Holland, which the hon. Lady visited when she was a member of the Committee—have a greater variety of measures and a sliding-scale budget that can be applied to match different people's requirements and to overcome the different barriers they face.

Jennifer Willott: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point to which I shall turn later, because I agree that there are problems in how the Government are framing the contracts.
	The hon. Gentleman also flags up the fact that there needs to be discretion at the level of the personal advisers, so they can identify when somebody has particularly complex needs and may require more than one intervention. Some of the decision making should be devolved to a lower level to enable the people who are involved with an individual to make the decisions that are best designed to get them back into work, rather than have a one-size-fits-all approach, which is a problem with the Government proposals.
	Let me deal now with the commissioning process. The Work and Pensions Committee, of which the hon. Gentleman is still a member, recently took evidence from a range of organisations, including the Social Market Foundation, the Employment Related Services Association, A4e, Serco and the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. I have also been talking to providers about issues concerning the commissioning process and the contracts the Government are putting forward. My understanding is that providers broadly agree that the Department's funding model will not meet the Government's objectives—for example, of delivering personalised support for all clients and involving specialist and third-sector providers. Members have raised the issue of the need for specialist providers to be able to offer support to those with specialist needs. That applies particularly to those who have physical difficulties or mental health issues, and that may present problems in terms of the contract.
	Providers appear to be backing up the Social Market Foundation's argument that the proposed funding model does not incentivise providers to support those who are furthest from the job market—the point just made by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose). The Government's estimate in the tendering process is to achieve a 55 per cent. employment rate at 13 weeks, so 55 per cent. of all those going through the process have to be in work for a minimum of three months before the provider gets the full payment. The SMF said in September that that was over-ambitious, and that was before the most recent figures, which show that unemployment for the three months to August has risen at the fastest rate for 17 years. That makes the target of 55 per cent. even less realistic than it was before; however, the Department has not revised the target rate of employment that it is expecting from providers, which gives rise to a number of concerns.
	Another very important issue is that providers do not have confidence that the contracts for which they are bidding will be profitable. If the targets that the Department expects to be achieved are completely unrealistic, it will be very difficult for providers to achieve them, which could undermine the whole exercise. Providers could go bust in the middle of a contract because they are unable to sustain the work that they are doing on the money they are getting back from the Government; or they could pull out mid-contract simply because it is not financially viable and that is the only way to avoid going under.
	We already know that the economy is in a worrying state. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggests that the worst is still to come and, according to most estimates, unemployment is going to rise significantly. In the last quarter, an average of 1,600 people were made redundant every day. That shows that the changes in the job market are rapid, which has the potential to undermine the involvement of the private and voluntary sectors. They will find it even harder to provide services if the contract is not based on a realistic funding model.
	We also need to be realistic and honest about the prospects of those who are already furthest from the job market—the long-term unemployed, those on incapacity benefit, those with very low skills levels. As unemployment gets worse over the next months and years, those falling out of work as a result of the economic downturn are the people most likely to be able to get back into work when conditions improve. They will be closest to the job market, more likely to have up-to-date skills, and so on. If we are not careful, we will have the same people out of work by the end of this recession as we have now. It will be even harder for those already out of work to find jobs in a narrowing jobs market, so to deal with that issue it is absolutely crucial that the contracts and the funding model are right.
	The contracts need to ensure that those who are currently unemployed can get back into work, and that they get the necessary support. That also means looking at those coming off incapacity benefit or employment and support allowance and going back into the jobs market, who will have additional needs. We need to ensure that the contracts take into account the additional needs of those who will be furthest away from work.
	At the moment, providers are saying that there is no room in the budgets for which they are being asked to tender for medical support for people with minor mental health problems—those, for example, with an alcohol or drug problem, or who need cognitive behavioural therapy to help them back into work. As more and more people fall out of incapacity benefit or the ESA and on to jobseeker's allowance instead, there will be a pool of people on JSA who will need such support; it will not just be people who are going through pathways to work. Because of the way in which the Government propose to draft the contracts, there is not enough headroom for providers to fund such support.
	I turn now to an issue raised by the hon. Members for Kingswood and for Weston-super-Mare. There is not enough money in the contracts to provide support for those furthest away from the job market and with the most complex needs. Because there is a flat rate, those closest to the job market will be the ones creamed off by providers, because they will be able to get them back into work. Given the contracting job market, it will be even more important that funding is available to tackle the really hard-to-reach people, in order to make it profitable for providers—in the private and voluntary sectors—to support those furthest from the job market in getting back into work. I should be grateful if, when he concludes the debate, the Minister said what the Department is doing to take into account the changing labour market conditions when they look at the contracts for the flexible new deal. If we do not take the changing circumstances into account, there could be a real problem in the next 12 months or so with the contracts that the Government intend to put out.
	Finally, there is a knock-on impact on Jobcentre Plus. Many Members, from all parts of the House, have raised concerns about overstretch for Jobcentre Plus staff. A number of people are concerned that the Government's stripping down of the Jobcentre Plus network and staff during times of economic prosperity is looking increasingly unsustainable. Since 2002, 491 Jobcentre Plus offices have closed and at least another 12 closures are planned in the foreseeable future. That is having a real impact in terms of accessibility of staff and the services provided by Jobcentre Plus. That is particularly true of many rural areas, where it has become increasingly difficult for people to travel to their local jobcentre to access support services.
	The DWP is also cutting significant numbers of staff: it has cut 30,000 jobs over the past three years, and a further 12,000 jobs are due to go over the next three years.

Janet Dean: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise issues relating to employment and unemployment in my constituency, and people with disabilities. I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) in welcoming the Minister for Disabled People to his post and in praising the former holder of that post, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire), for her brilliant work with disabled organisations.
	In 1997, unemployment in some of the inner wards in Burton upon Trent stood at 17 per cent.; the reduction in employment in the brewing industry in Burton had taken its toll. The town of Uttoxeter had still not recovered from the loss of more than 2,000 jobs in the early 1980s, when the local dairy and Bamfords agricultural machinery factory closed. More than 2,000 people were unemployed in my constituency in 1997, many of them long-term unemployed and young, but between 1997 and 2007, unemployment in my constituency decreased by well over 50 per cent.
	Until the recent downturn, Government policies such as the new deal, more help for parents through tax credits and the provision of better advice and support through Jobcentre Plus had transformed the job situation and the hopes and opportunities of hard-working people. Unfortunately, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit in Burton has risen steeply. However, I understand from Jobcentre Plus that it is still receiving 20 to 30 vacancies per day. Companies are still choosing to relocate to my constituency because of our excellent work force and strategic position in the country. Although unemployment has risen, 81.7 per cent. of those claiming unemployment benefit in Burton have been doing so for less than six months, compared with 69.9 per cent. in the west midlands as a whole.
	These are difficult times and the Government need to do everything possible to support those who lose their jobs, to ensure that they can be retrained and can regain employment as quickly as possible. I welcome the Government's decision to endeavour to help small businesses to withstand the downturn by making the swift payment of invoices a priority; I hope that local authorities will do the same. I also welcome the Government's action in encouraging the banks to open up credit facilities for small businesses.
	I also welcome the Government's decision to maintain spending and to bring forward capital projects where possible. That is crucial in order to stimulate the construction industry, save jobs and build homes that people need, as well as to continue to improve this country's public infrastructure. It is far better to borrow to maintain jobs than to have the downward spiral that we experienced in the 1980s. One of the first companies to be hit by the global downturn, particularly the downturn in the construction industry, has been JCB, whose headquarters is at Rocester, in my constituency. JCB's UK work force, who are mainly based in Staffordshire, had increased by 44 per cent., from 3,900 to 5,700, between December 2005 and December 2007. Sadly, JCB announced earlier this year that more than 500 workers would be made redundant because of the worldwide downturn.
	I am grateful for the help and support offered at that time by agencies such as Jobcentre Plus, Advantage West Midlands and the Learning and Skills Council, and by voluntary bodies, such as the citizens advice bureaux. More recently, JCB announced the prospect of further redundancies or the alternative of a shorter working week and fewer redundancies. I congratulate the GMB and the work force on deciding to accept a cut in working hours and pay in order to protect jobs. It will be a hard time for JCB workers and their families, but we hope that the company can quickly increase production again if there is an upturn in the world economy. Indeed, since that decision was taken we heard good news; when the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, led a delegation to Russia, the announcement was made that JCB had secured a £23 million order to supply machines to help build the transport infrastructure for the 2014 winter Olympics. I also commend Advantage West Midlands, the LSC and other agencies for the work that they are doing to try to protect the 950 jobs at Fox's Biscuits in Uttoxeter. The west midlands is fortunate in having the expertise to help businesses to improve their production and training, and the skills of their work force.
	Brewing and pub companies remain extremely important employers in Burton upon Trent, in my constituency. There has been a gradual decline in the number of people employed in brewing and there are great pressures on the industry. It is important for all Departments to examine how they can help that traditional industry. I recently co-chaired an inquiry into community pubs on behalf of the all-party group on beer. Our report suggests sensible ways of helping the pub and brewing industry. We urge the Government to reconsider their policy on beer duty, and to examine how the rating system can reflect the benefits that pubs bring to local communities, the differential between pricing in the on-trade and the off-trade and how red tape can be reduced. We need the Government to give a positive response to the report in order to save jobs in my constituency and elsewhere.
	I know that besides trying to prevent unemployment, the Government want to ensure that those with disabilities and ill health are not left behind and that even in a downturn they are given equal opportunities to retain and find employment. I congratulate Jobcentre Plus on the work that it has done through the pathways to work programme. I also welcome the Minister's reassurance on the training that Jobcentre Plus officers have received to help people with autism. I chair the all-party group on autism, so I know that those with conditions ranging from autism to lupus and other inflammatory arthritis welcome the principle behind the changes that the Government are making to prevent people from being disadvantaged in employment opportunities because of their disability. However, we must ensure that the process works well on the ground and that other agencies, such as the national health service, understand the need to treat people quickly to ensure that patients can retain their employment or train for new employment. Thankfully, the waiting times for operations have been greatly reduced. For conditions such as inflammatory arthritis, however, timely and correct referrals to consultants for diagnosis and treatment are important. We want not only to keep people in work or get them back to it, but to improve long-term prognoses so that people can be maintained in work. NICE should take account of the benefits of quick treatment and the most effective drugs when producing its guidance on drugs and treatment—it does not always do so.
	We must ensure that the medical assessments of the Department for Work and Pensions are accurate. I recognise that the doctors who carry out the work capability assessments will consider what people can do irrespective of their medical condition, but we need to ensure that those doctors understand claimants' medical conditions. Recently, I attended the Burton upon Trent scleroderma and Raynaud's group, and was horrified when a lupus patient described her medical to me. The doctor had no knowledge of the condition, did not refer to a consultant's letter or report and kept referring to the symptoms as having been caused by drugs; anyone who knows anything about the condition knows the symptoms caused by it.
	We must ensure that people do not fall through the gap between incapacity benefits and jobseeker's allowance, especially at a time of rising unemployment. We must ensure that people do not necessarily lose their benefits just because, following a medical, they are told that they are fit for work. Some employers keep people's jobs open for them only until their consultants believe that they are fit for work. I recognise that for many people these are worrying times, but I welcome the proactive work of the Government and agencies such as Jobcentre Plus and the regional development agencies in trying to prevent redundancies and, when they do arise, to ensure that good advice, training and support are available.

Lyn Brown: It will be hard to follow the speech by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), especially as I shall come at the subject from a completely different angle.
	I want to focus on an area in the welfare and work agenda that, although small, is of the utmost importance to the constituents whom I represent. I want to underline the difficulties experienced by many in my constituency who are forced to live in temporary accommodation and who, as a result of the high rents that are charged, find it impossible to work and keep a roof their heads. That is due almost entirely to the way in which the housing benefits system works, and I hope to be able to impress on my hon. Friends on the Front Bench the seriousness of the poverty trap that that causes.
	I make this speech in the knowledge that we are just weeks away from a Queen's Speech and new legislation. I have mentioned this matter at least twice in the Chamber and three times in Westminster Hall debates, and I hope that something can be done.
	Professor John Hills's report into social housing was launched in February 2007 by the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly). In her speech, she excellently summed up the Government's aspiration for social housing:
	"My key point today is that we should be more ambitious. Social housing must work better as a platform for social and economic mobility...The Working Future pilot in East London"—
	it was based in my constituency—
	"is testing how low rents and better employment advice can help families in temporary accommodation find work. It is only a small pilot, but the results are striking.
	This is an area where seven in ten households contained no-one in work. Where nearly half of people had never held a job...The pilot gave intensive support to a group of participants. After 18 months more than a quarter are now in work and well over half are engaged in training or work placements.
	We will evaluate this pilot closely. But I am clear that in the future, working with the Department for Work and Pensions, approaches that bring housing, training and employment together should be the rule, rather than the exception."
	I welcome the Government's understanding of the interconnectivity of people's social and economic circumstances that impact on their ability to work and thrive. I am making a call to action across Departments—the Government must take the right actions to help individuals and communities back to work. However, I believe that we have failed to consider properly the impact of a tax and benefits system that delivers a most extreme manifestation of the poverty trap.
	My constituents are virtually imprisoned by the excessively high rents charged for temporary accommodation, which those on low wages can afford only because they are subsidised by the housing benefits scheme. We are talking about rents of more than £350 a week—not for a palace or a mansion but often for a two-bedroom flat above an insalubrious parade of shops or take-away establishments.
	On one level of key importance, our Government are attacking the problem at the root by accelerating the creation of affordable housing. Housing that is available at a social rent will significantly improve the life chances of many of the people whom I represent, in all kinds of ways and not just in their ability to work. Additionally, I am pleased to welcome the small but significant step that has been taken in the right direction to reduce the depth of the poverty trap by disregarding child benefit as income when housing benefit is calculated. I believe that is an astute move, and I shall certainly support much more of the same.
	I also welcome the Government's undertaking to engage positively with the report of the London child poverty commission, and the review of working age housing benefit and its effectiveness in promoting work and fairness. I hope that someone from that review will take note of what I have to say today.
	My message is that the housing benefit system is in desperate need of reform. To illustrate my concerns, I want to tell the story of a constituent of mine, a lone parent in her early 40s, who was working as an administrator at Guy's hospital. She was renting privately and had good prospects, having been offered a promotion and additional hours. She wanted to purchase a property under the key worker scheme and was eligible to do so, but the high cost of living and private sector child care meant that she could not get a deposit together. However, she was still optimistic: she was still ready to go for it, and she came to see me to talk about the options available to her. It was gut wrenching for her that she could work only 16 hours a week and was thus not able to take up the promotion that she was being offered.
	She then had to move out her property because her landlord wanted to sell it. Her circumstances were really awful, through no fault of her own. She joined a scheme that allowed her a social rent for her home, but it was short lived. She and her little girl found themselves in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and things went downhill from there. From the bed-and-breakfast accommodation, she was moved—with debts—to temporary accommodation, and her rent escalated.
	Her rent for a two-bedroom property—which is mostly paid by housing benefit—is £355 a week. She went to the citizen's advice bureau and asked for a calculation of her in-work entitlements. She was really struggling to make ends meet and could not work out why she was not able to survive. It was explained to her that she would be only £50 a week better off in work, although that estimate did not include transport costs. She had to travel only a short distance on the Jubilee line, but unfortunately her transport costs came to £100 a month, which meant that she would be worse off working.
	I hope that the House will bear it in mind that I have set out only the up-front costs involved. Working incurs many more costs that are not included in Jobcentre Plus calculations of in-work benefits. For example, a person's eligibility to claim free school meals can be forgotten, and that can have a large impact on their finances. Sometimes, too, factors such as travelling time are not calculated properly, and that can have an impact on the amount of child care that has to be paid for. I hope that hon. Members will remember those little illustrations as I continue my speech.
	My constituent is not working at the moment. She simply cannot afford to keep the roof over her head for herself and her child. She does voluntary work for a small charity to keep her hand in—ironically, it provides advice on employment and benefits, as well as running activities for children.
	My constituent has told me about the depth of her despair. She said that the events that I have described came at a time of her life when she wanted to progress. She said that she is
	"trapped in benefits, prevented from returning to work—all my wages would just go to pay the rent and I would be worse off."
	She had been on the housing waiting list for four years, and she has been bidding under the choice-based letting scheme for three years. She has been told that it will take a minimum of between five and six years for her to be rehoused in permanent accommodation. She contacted the council's homeless persons unit and has repeatedly asked to be rehoused in a property that has a social rent as she is desperate to work. Unfortunately, the unit could do nothing to help her.

Lyn Brown: I thank the hon. Gentleman, who pre-empts the content of my speech, as I was about to complain massively about the housing benefit taper. However, I was planning to take a long time doing it, to prolong the pain for my Front Bench colleagues in the hope that it might bring about the change that I want.
	My constituent is a woman of positive outlook. She has been a health service administrator and she wants to make her own way. She wants her child to witness and copy her work ethic and get on in life. She knows that being out work is not a good example for her little girl. She is skilled, articulate and motivated. The last thing she wants is to be caged in unemployment for years to come, but that is her position. That pernicious, self-perpetuating cycle of dependency on housing benefit traps a significant number of my constituents in temporary accommodation and out of work. More than 4,000 households in the London borough of Newham alone are living in private sector temporary accommodation, which costs about £70 million a year.
	Those people have years to wait before they can expect to receive a council property; the average wait for a three-bedroom property is 13 years—and we have 25,000 families on the housing waiting list. I have heard from constituents who have asked their managers not to give them a pay rise, as after the recalculation of their housing benefit they would be worse off. Other constituents would like full-time work, or to increase their hours, but they have discovered that if they work additional hours they may lose financially once housing benefit is withdrawn. I could tell many similar stories.
	When people talk to me about returning to work, there is hesitation—I admit that to the hon. Member for Broxbourne—but not because they are feckless; they are fearful, in most cases rightly, that they will not be able to manage financially. There may be people who would advocate that my constituent returns to work despite being advised that she will be worse off by £50 a month, so I want to enlarge the picture to include other women I have met during my time as MP for West Ham.
	I attended a focus group—for want of a better word; it was not a focus group, but I describe it as such because Members will know exactly what I mean—looking into regeneration for an area, and I interviewed two groups of women separately about their living conditions. I asked them what they wanted to see improved in the area and what steps they thought we could take to improve their prospects. We talked about the obvious things—schools, nurseries, child care, education, antisocial behaviour and health. Then I asked about work, and I did not expect their reaction. I was shocked to discover that eight in 10 of those women had heard and responded to the Government's call to return to work but after a period of only months they had to cease working, completely defeated. They found themselves in increasing debt, unable to manage the costs of working, which included housing, child care, school meals and transport. The calculations that had been made for them by professional advisers had been inaccurate or perhaps overly optimistic. Those women expressed complete devastation and despair that they had been defeated. Their confidence had been absolutely shattered by the experience. Before they went back to work they had not been in debt; they had found ways of managing. After going back to work they found themselves saddled with costs that they had not foreseen and they tried to soldier on hoping it would all work out—but it did not and it has left them crushed.
	Despite recent falls in the rate of the probability of leaving work, lone parents are still almost as likely as non-lone parents to leave their jobs. One in five lone parents who leave income support return to it within six months; more than quarter do so within a year, a third within two years and almost two fifths within three years. Lisa Harker's report on child poverty projected that if the rate of job exits among lone parents was reduced to that of non-lone parents, the Government's target of 70 per cent. employment could be met with no increase in the number of lone parents entering work.
	For some women, the loss of help with child care costs, rent and tax credit can mean that they face a marginal tax rate of 96 per cent. At the centre of that marginal tax rate is housing benefit and the problem centres on the 65p in the pound withdrawal rate of housing benefit as income increases. The Hills report, to which I have referred before, stated that a couple with two children paying a typical private rent of £120 a week—please: in my constituency we are talking circa £350 a week—would, as a result of reduced benefit and tax credits and a higher rate of national insurance, gain only £23 if their earnings rose from £100 to £400 a week. There is simply no incentive.

Dai Davies: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). All of us, no matter where our constituency, can appreciate what she said this afternoon. My constituency has one of the highest rates of incapacity benefit claimants in the country, so the Green Paper's proposals will have a significant impact on the people who live there. The high level of IB locally probably relates to historical issues to do with mining and the steel industry, which go back many years. However, as we have heard this afternoon, all of us support a work ethic for individuals, and we must do all that we can to help those who can work to get into work.
	On those lines, one issue that we have not really touched on this afternoon is the role of the general practitioner. The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) spoke of our role in encouraging people into work. A lot more work needs to be done on general practitioners; certainly in my area, for many years they have perhaps seen the benefit system as somewhere for people to go, because there are no jobs. We definitely have to expand on the role of GPs in persuading people that the best medicine for them is probably work. Having said that, at present, the availability of work in my constituency is limited, to say the least. As manufacturing has taken a significant nosedive, we have been left with service industry, which in the couple of months—or probably the year—ahead will experience a significant decline. I accept that we must do what we can to find work, but it will be difficult.
	A lot of work needs to be done on social enterprise. A great deal of European funding has come into my constituency for that purpose, but we have only scratched the surface of encouraging people to be entrepreneurs and to set up their own businesses. We have heard a lot about small businesses, and help for them, in the past couple of months, but representatives of two such businesses have come to me in the past week, and loans from the bank are not a help to them. They are struggling to pay back what they already owe. It will be a huge problem to turn around some of the small businesses.
	One of our major problems with access to work is transport. My constituency is among those with the lowest car ownership rates in the country. We have to try to get bus service providers to see that agreements allowing them to drive into industrial estates would benefit them, as well as other people. Many of our bus services drop passengers off far from those estates, and people literally have to walk miles to work if they do not have their own transport.
	Another worry, given the present circumstances and the problems that we are likely to hit next year, is loss of income. Many families in my constituency survive on the minimum wage. A lot of people on incapacity benefit have a certain standard of living at the moment. The figures have been quoted this afternoon; if some of those benefits are to drop, it will have a significant impact on poverty in my constituency. It would cut the amount of disposable income available, so the local economy would experience a downturn, too. All those issues need to be considered carefully.
	My constituents regularly complain to me about the way in which they are told that they are fit for work. A general practitioner, or even a hospital specialist, will say that a person is unfit, but then a board of individuals who have perhaps never seen the person before may decide, within an hour and a half, that the person is fit for work. We need to overcome that issue. The lack of joined-up thinking about whether a person is fit for work is still a huge barrier. Another concern is the board's understanding of medical conditions. We have heard about mental health issues, but boards may not have the experience and expertise to understand how other conditions, such as diabetes and addiction, affect people's lives. We need to be mindful of that.
	In my constituency, we are struggling to provide support services, including adequate child care, which we have heard about this afternoon, and training. Training centres are under threat as we speak. The voluntary sector is probably one of the areas that not only helps with training, but could be bolstered by people coming off benefits. Borough councils, and especially social services, have a huge role to play. The links with social services are important in supporting people who are looking to get back into the employment market.
	My biggest worry about how we tackle the issue is the target-setting mentality. I worry that jobcentres are given a target for the number of people that they must get off benefits. It worries me that people may be coming off benefits not because they are fit for work, but because Jobcentre Plus, or whoever—there are other organisations involved—have to hit their targets. That is a major concern. I had a constituent of 61 years of age, who had been on benefits for some 15 years. All of a sudden, he was told that he was fit for work: he may have been, but the shock was immense. When he walks into a Jobcentre Plus office and sees young people sat around the room, he will wonder why he is being targeted. That is why target-setting worries me. For those who can work, there is no problem, but we must be mindful of the way in which we achieve it.
	There will be further pressures on Jobcentre Plus, as we have heard, and its role in working with many agencies will be critical if the Green Paper and its plans are to succeed. I honestly believe that shutting Jobcentre Plus offices at this time is a mistake: to lose their staff's expertise and experience will do nothing for the people whom we represent. I also worry about the further privatisation of the welfare state: putting the lives of our people in the hands of those who are there to make a profit is a real concern to me.
	I urge the Government to listen to the words of the Social Security Advisory Committee, which has many concerns about the Green Paper, and to listen to, and negotiate with, the trade unions that represent the people who work at the sharp end, because, if we do not listen to the people who work in the incapacity benefit system and to those whom it affects, we may end up making very grave mistakes. There will be a negative impact—certainly on constituents in constituencies such as mine.

Nia Griffith: We need to look very carefully at why there are 600,000 vacancies, yet there are people who are not in work, because it is not always as easy as it might seem to match up the two. I shall begin by referring to our record and by asking: how do we make people go to work?
	The first important thing is to have work for them, and the general economic situation over the past 11 years has provided opportunities where there were none before. In my constituency, there have been far more opportunities in the past few years than there were previously. Secondly, we have to make work worth while. The national minimum wage has been absolutely key to making going to work worth while for people, so keeping and increasing it must be a priority. There was enormous opposition when we first mooted the idea. The world was about to end, we were told—everything would collapse, everybody would be unemployed and nothing would function; it was a total impossibility. However, we looked at other countries where it worked perfectly well, had the courage of our convictions and went forward with it, and the fact that now nobody is expected to work for less than the minimum wage has made an enormous difference.
	Working tax credits have made an enormous difference, too. One can earn a certain amount of money and the working tax credit and child tax credit help to make that income more worthwhile. We must be mindful of the fact that, without those systems, it is very easy for people to fall into the poverty trap of not being able to work because, with the additional costs that work brings, they cannot afford to make ends meet.
	Flexible working has also been important in helping people into work. It is important that we recognise the needs of people, such as carers and parents, and the fact that trade unions such as the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, of which I am a member, have done a good deal of work. The way in which we have treated paternity and maternity leave has given people more opportunities to go back to work, to remain in work and to continue to do jobs that they enjoy, while having a family. However, we can still do a lot more, which is why we will shortly bring forth the draft equality Bill.
	Although there have been improvements since 1997, it is true that disabled people are still more likely to be out of work than those who are not disabled, that one is still less likely to find work if one is from an ethnic minority than if one is not, and that among the over-50s there is still a feeling that their age counts against them when seeking work. That is why the Government are preparing the draft equality Bill, which will strengthen protection against discrimination and advance equality.
	We all recognise the serious worldwide economic situation that we face, and it is difficult to predict how it will work out in the different job sectors. We know that even before the current difficulties our manufacturing industries faced severe competition from cheaper locations abroad. All those issues lead people to be anxious about the future, which is why Government action and support at this time is absolutely vital, and why we need to maintain our public spending programme and starting levels in public services, such as the national health service, education and the police force. It is also why we need to maintain our capital expenditure programmes, and not abandon them. That, in turn, provides jobs for the private sector. Thousands of private sector firms, large and small, depend on public service contracts or on work that they are going to do for public capital expenditure projects in order to maintain their incomes. It is far better for us to pay people to be in work and paying taxes than it is to support them through unemployment benefit.
	I believe that our borrowing can be justified, because we have reduced our public debt considerably, from 43 per cent. of gross domestic product in 1997, to 37 per cent. last year. If we look at how we compare with other countries, such as Italy, whose debt is 101 per cent. of GDP, and the relatively strong economies of France and Germany, which have debts of more than 50 per cent. of GDP, we realise that we are in a strong position, and can take on more borrowing. When people talk about our economy slowing down more quickly than the economies of some other European Community members, they must remember that our economy has been like a jaguar—like a cheetah. It has raced ahead, and while it may be slowing down a bit, it is still working well and going faster than some of the more elephantine economies in the eurozone. Although we may be slowing down more quickly in relative terms, we are still doing better than many of our European neighbours.
	We know that in spite of all the efforts to keep the economy going, however, there will be some redundancies and some sectors will be badly hit, so it is important that we have strong Government support for those who face losing their jobs. They are often highly skilled workers with many years' experience, and that is why I welcome the £100 million of new money that will go to retrain people and help them find alternative employment. I know, too, that many people worry very much about losing their homes; it is their first worry when they hear that they might lose their jobs. They desperately want to keep a roof over themselves and their family, so it is important that we have introduced that measure, because it will help people considerably.
	We have also brought forward, from 39 weeks to 13 weeks, the amount of time that one must be out of work before one can start to claim mortgage help, and we have raised the capital amount threshold from £100,000 to £175,000, in keeping with the average price of a home these days. Those measures are extremely important, because, often, the home is people's first worry.
	It is also extremely important that we are strengthening the Jobcentre Plus rapid response service to ensure that it can respond when there are major job losses, and I pay tribute to the excellent work of the Jobcentre Plus staff in my constituency. The work of personal advisers in helping people get back to work is absolutely invaluable. Many of our employers have also been helpful, particularly when dealing with people whom we might call very hard cases. The employers have had to have the patience of saints to encourage, cajole and help those people to overcome the considerable difficulties of returning to work. It was a great pleasure for me to attend an awards ceremony not long ago at which those employers were rewarded for the work that they do.
	My local Jobcentre Plus has also managed to access some European convergence funding for a "want to work" programme. That dovetails very well with the Department for Work and Pensions programmes for getting people back to work, and it will be particularly effective in the Community First wards in my constituency. Those include Tyisha ward, Glanymor ward, Bigyn ward, Felinfoel ward and Llwynhendy ward. It will help considerably in enabling people to go back to work.
	However, I would like to sound a note of caution on dealing with lone parents, which needs to be done sensitively and cautiously. Any system of sanctions will affect the child as well as the parents. We therefore need to use encouragement, help and support to get lone parents back to work, rather than a system of punishment. We also need to consider carefully the different factors affecting whether lone parents can work or not. We must accept that parenting is an extremely challenging role, and that it can be exhausting for a lone parent. Not only are they the only parent; they are also the only adult doing everything else in the household. That, in itself, is a full-time job. It is easy for us to look at a highly paid professional who has a car and who can do a few hours' work, combine it with well-paid child care and organise their life, and forget that that is not the reality for those with the fewest skills.
	The problem for those with the fewest skills is that their earning capacity is limited. They therefore have to work longer hours to make ends meet, and they often face difficulties with transport. In some of the outlying areas of my constituency, for example, the costs and the time factors involved in leaving children somewhere, getting to work and getting back from work in time to pick up the children can be extremely complex. That can make things very difficult. It often precludes children from being able to attend a breakfast club or an after-school club, because the transport times do not enable parents to return in time to pick up their children.

John Howell: I want to make a number of points about the welfare programme and, in particular, the flexible new deal. Before I do that, however, I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott). She mentioned the difficulty that people in rural communities experience in accessing a Jobcentre Plus. That is a worry not only for the moment but for the entire approach to this programme. Many of the providers that she mentioned have very little experience of delivering these products in rural communities. They have a good base in the urban communities, but they have no experience elsewhere. When talking to those providers, I have been conscious of the fact that, although they are aware of the differences and the additional costs involved, they do not really have a handle on the quantification of those costs and difficulties.
	The Government models that I have seen so far have been largely based in urban areas. However, we do not have to go too far out of our cities—just 50 miles down the road from here to Henley—to see a constituency many of whose areas are already quite rural. I foresee a cost problem in Henley. We are already seeing a cost in terms of the claimant. If someone lives in a village for which there is only one bus once a week, they have no option but to use other transport, and that has a cost. There is also a cost to the providers that will operate there. Rural areas also have difficulties arising from distance and isolation; there are fewer opportunities to look for ways of getting back into work, and in many cases the economy is more on the margin. All those factors mean that, overall, more effort is required to achieve fewer outcomes.
	The final difficulty with the Government's approach is one of customer choice. One hopes that customer choice works well—particularly within the flexible new deal—in an urban setting, where different providers operate and there are real choices. However, that will not be the case in rural areas, where it will not be profitable for many providers to work at the same time. I would like the Minister to say how rural issues are to be tackled. Will he encourage some sort of differential in targeting rural areas? The problem is serious.
	I turn now to the overall scheme. I have difficulties with how it is structured—that probably owes something to my background in management consultancy, a discipline that likes things to be just so and in place. I am happy, however, with the idea of a scheme being based on outcomes. In this case, the outcomes are essentially based on getting into work and on that work being sustainable. The difficulty is that, as the providers to whom I have spoken acknowledge, those outcomes are not easy to measure and we will therefore rely increasingly on proxies that bring us back to delivering something equating to those measures.
	I have no problem with such proxies, although it is difficult to see which will be chosen. A proxy of getting people off benefits is an approximation to getting people into work, but it is clearly not the same. Combining that with tax information will add to it. If I understood him correctly, the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) made a point about one of the things of which I have become wary, particularly given that I have seen how it operates in the Netherlands. One proxy is to put the emphasis on the tender rather than on one of the other proxies. The difficulty with that in the Netherlands has been that it has skewed the whole system so that it no longer focuses on outcomes but on measuring proxies.
	In the Netherlands, a whole system and bureaucracy have grown up that measure not the outcomes but the tenders; the tenders are tightened up all the time. In that way, any innovation is squeezed out of the system. That is partly because the measurement systems are not got right at the beginning, but it also comes from the enhanced suspicion and mistrust of the private sector that there often is when such schemes are put together. So we end up with more inspection regimes and a need for more funding and bureaucracy. We also end up with a post hoc justification of success, which is never a good idea if these schemes are to be successful in reaching the people whom they should be reaching.
	As regards the hard-to-reach groups, we heard a request for early intervention and for the scale of that intervention to be much larger than originally envisaged. There is a third element, however. I detect a sequential approach to people who have difficulties other than being unemployed, whether those difficulties be drugs or lack of literacy, whereby the mentality is to tackle those problems first before moving on to the problem of unemployment. Having seen the situation in the Netherlands, I think it would be a mistake to continue with that. It is necessary to tackle the problems simultaneously. As we have seen from examples not only in the Netherlands but elsewhere, it is entirely possible to tackle the problems of literacy and drug abuse while somebody is in a job, so that the whole situation becomes a virtuous circle feeding into the individual getting to where we want them to be, and where they want to be, much earlier.
	I made some remarks about skills in a topical debate a few weeks ago, but as only one Labour Back Bencher was present throughout the entire debate, I have no hesitation in giving the benefit of my wisdom to the larger number who have turned up today. The point that I made, which the Minister said that he would take away, concerned the need to address the lack of flexibility and granularity in skills programmes such as Train to Gain. The skills agenda must be matched with the skills needs of business and of an area as a whole. My constituency has less than 1 per cent. unemployment and a high-tech, high-end business sector. It therefore has fundamentally different requirements in terms of the skills market from other, less fortunate areas. The one-size-not-fitting-all approach is demonstrated superbly by comparing my constituency with another that is less fortunate. Unless we put flexibility into the system, we end up losing the competitive advantage in areas that have high-tech, high-end businesses and need those skills.
	Small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency are already showing commitment. They have an extremely good reputation for providing training for apprenticeships and beyond apprenticeships into the future. The Conservative proposals for more workplace apprenticeships, including a £2,000 bonus for each apprenticeship, are welcome. More importantly, we can help small businesses in this regard. Big businesses are able to help themselves. When I was a cabinet member on a county council, my job was to restructure many aspects of the council, which meant getting rid of a number of posts. One way of doing that while retaining the skills that had built up was to set up a job-finder service within the organisation. That works well in large organisations but is clearly impractical for SMEs on their own, but we can encourage them and provide them with the resources to develop self-help schemes that can produce the critical mass to enable them to operate similar schemes.
	In the summer recess, I went to work for a day at the local jobcentre that covers the southern part of my constituency. It was an interesting experience. Only one individual was too aggressive for the ladies who were dealing with him to cope with, and given that I have to face similar situations at surgeries, I felt perfectly qualified to be able to deal with it myself. I have to echo the comments already made about the staff at Jobcentre Plus; I have enormous admiration for the patience and diplomacy with which they deal with people.
	Perhaps the most heartening experience of the day I spent working there was that of a young single mother who had rushed to the job centre within hours of getting a job because she could not wait to get signed off and to get on with her life. It would be nice to feel that any welfare-to-work system could bottle up that enthusiasm and independence and help to spread it. That is a good example of someone wanting to work and of support being provided through an opportunity to get out of the welfare system, which she clearly hated being involved with, and to get on with her own life.

Mark Todd: Before I make the four points that I intended to, I shall mention something raised earlier in an intervention. We face a recession that may be quite severe, but I would not commend as appropriate a xenophobic policy response that focuses on narrowing opportunities for those from overseas to work in our country. It has not been particularly edifying to see a certain amount of competitive spirit applied over that instinct. There are reasonable immigration controls, which I am perfectly happy to support, but the tenor of the debate on that matter has not been helpful to those who want a thriving economy based on appropriate skills, which are often delivered by people from overseas, or those who want a more tolerant society.
	I shall now move on to the substance of my speech. The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) sat through an Adjournment debate I initiated on a topic relevant to today's debate—flexibility on retirement. I wish to refresh the memory of those on my Front Bench on some of the issues raised. Many of those who seek to work beyond 65 do so for entirely understandable reasons. They actually enjoy their life, and correctly recognise that a certain amount of work in older age is good for people. An active retirement is a positive contribution to longevity, and we should try to have systems in place that permit such retirement.
	My Adjournment debate of two years ago focused on some of the things that we are getting wrong. I cited the example of a constituent—a marvellous man, who was 74 then and still a truck driver. He had just been injured, but talked at length to me about how much his job meant to him, and how we should have a society that encourages such behaviour. There are three little things that we could do to make matters easier. First, if an employer employs someone of that age, they continue to pay national insurance, even though the contribution to the state pension is redundant at that point—the person in question has normally fully paid up over the number of years that they have accumulated. It would be worth considering the national insurance obligations for employers of people who have gone beyond the point where maximum contributions can be achieved. Secondly, if a person defers their state retirement pension, they currently get a pound-for-pound reallocation of that saving towards their future pension. To be honest, that is a pretty substantial understatement of the benefit that they are creating by continuing to work. It would be reasonable to attach some premium to a person's postponement of their claiming of the state pension, to facilitate their willingness to continue to work.
	Thirdly, there may be merit in applying some fiscal measures to incentivise working beyond 65. I have no shame in returning to that topic. It is partly about individual liberty—we are permitting controls that employers enforce to drive people out of work at 65 when they are willing to continue—and partly about flexibility in our economy.
	Let me give another example—I fear that not all these issues are linked, but the broad nature of the debate presents an opportunity to raise a range of topics. Derbyshire county council has drawn to my attention its difficulty in recruiting crossing patrols—lollipop ladies or men—and the problem of allowing someone to combine that work with claiming a benefit for which they are eligible. As I said in an intervention, we should examine the disregards that we apply to people who claim specific benefits to permit them to carry out such activities. The case that we are considering involves relatively few hours and rather modest pay. There are strong therapeutic arguments for such an approach in the case of someone who qualifies for benefits related to incapacity benefit, and there are obviously strong social advantages. To be honest, the loss to the Treasury is likely to be modest.
	Such changes are worth considering as the minor adjustments necessary to open up opportunities at the edge of job markets for people who currently do not find it worth while to take on work. I should have made my next comment before my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) left her place, but she made an incredibly good speech about the marginalisation and exclusion that some people face. I am speaking, on the whole, about more fortunate individuals, relatively speaking, but we are considering the charmed circle of admission to work in our society and trying to find methods of building outwards and creating opportunities that are good for individuals and society.
	It is good that one or two hon. Members who take an interest in the next subject that I want to raise are present. I know well the father of a now adult autistic boy, and I was struck by an earlier intervention about the difficulties that adult autistic people experience in migrating to work. I have a letter, which I shall not quote because I have not asked permission to do so, but I am prompted by that intervention to refer to some of its contents. The writer's son has been trying to enter employment for nine years. His dad and those who saw him recognised that he needed help with that. He needed accompanying and appropriate guidance for a placement so that he could work effectively there. Sadly, despite repeat experiences, that has not been made available to him.
	The latest letter was sad to receive, and gives the last such experience. Lengthy engagement took place with Jobcentre Plus, so that everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing. The son would turn up at the suggested placement and have an appropriate interview, which would suggest the sort of support that he might receive. The father and son turned up at the offices of the organisation involved, which was in the voluntary sector, presuming that Jobcentre Plus had provided a brief to the body about the son's needs. They found that the organisation had not been briefed and had little history to which to refer of the son's previous experience. There was a reference to a discussion with Jobcentre Plus staff, but it was not made clear with whom the discussion had taken place. The son was taken through a history of placements that bore no resemblance to those that he had attended. Reference was also made to a placement that he had never been on.
	We are talking about a fragile young man who needed support to get into employment. He had experienced significant difficulties and frustration in the past and was unfortunately facing them once more, albeit fortunately with his dad, who could support him through that repeat negative experience.

Mark Todd: The hon. Gentleman is right, as he is very often is. The point is not just about me feeling sad and compassionate; it is about a waste of a young man and his capacity to contribute to our economy and a waste of resources, in assisting him to stay workless, when with some imagination and proper information management, he could be helped and given an appropriate opportunity. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, this is not just about compassion.
	I maintain a regular correspondence with that young man's dad, who is a very capable man and who must find it most frustrating to deal with the problem repeatedly. I hope that we can reach an appropriate local resolution. The issue highlights the fact that the bold words used by the Minister about the level of available training and resources are perhaps more optimism than reality, at least on the basis of the experience that I have described and that of the hon. Gentleman, who knows far more about the subject than I do and who has quoted the reality.
	The fourth issue that I want to raise is again completely different, but links to the speech of the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), because it relates to keeping people in work and close to the job market and providing them with the appropriate skills that they need. I have done some work on the issue with a body called the midlands engineering industry resource group, which was an excellent project that provided a network of engineering employers to pass on job opportunities and training ideas when jobs in the sector were threatened. Unfortunately the contractors lost the bid for the project's continuance, but the basic principles remain.
	I want to commend a similar project called the better west midlands project. One might say, "He's an east midlands MP, so why's he talking about that?" The reason is that I want it in my area, too. The better west midlands project, which is a partnership among various unions, the European Commission and the local learning and skills council, aims to deliver a range of interventions when jobs appear to be threatened, so that redundancies are consulted on.
	The critical factor is union involvement, without which the typical position is to say, "We're going to bargain over redundancies, but we're not going to talk about any of the practical stuff to do with supporting people into future opportunities until we've gone through the consultation phase and resolved things." That can mean losing 90 days straight away. With the unions' participation, however, it is possible to launch into work on the practical issues with their support and enthusiasm, which includes the following: an initial assessment of the work involved; a Skills for Life screening; one-to-one confidential advice about future career options; a training needs analysis to work out where people are in their careers and what they might require to progress; the development of an action plan for people to follow; the provision of a certain amount of training and support to meet some of the needs that have been identified; referrals to specialist organisations, which may involve debt counselling and benefits advice; and help with job searches. That is excellent. It is an example of resources being targeted exactly as we will need them to be, I am afraid, during what look to be hard times. Such examples are not always available.
	Sadly, when the unions involved approached the east midlands learning and skills council, admittedly a few months back, it produced the rather optimistic statement, "Well, we do not see too much call for that here." Most of us who heard that thought, "That probably was not entirely accurate then, but sadly it is not likely to be accurate in the immediate future." We will certainly need dedicated resources delivered in partnership with recognised trade unions, because that adds an additional edge to the capability of the project.
	In all these areas, I am talking about protecting jobs and giving people individual rights to the opportunity to get a job in our society. As the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) said, that is not just because I feel sorry for people—although I tend to—but because that it is the basis of a successful economy and a more robust society, in which we would all seek to live.

Lee Scott: Let me start by mentioning an issue that the hon. Members for Burton (Mrs. Dean) and for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) raised: getting autistic young adults and adults into employment.
	I want to cite a story from when I was a councillor involving a young man whom I had known since he was a child. He was quite high up on the autistic spectrum, but he had specialist attention. When he left education, a large company asked him to join its training programme. We move on a number of years, and that young man is in his 20s; he is holding down a job in that large company and he is succeeding. The company is making exceptions and showing the great understanding necessary in such situations. One day, when the young man did not appear for work, someone from the company went round to where he was living, asked what was wrong and talked through the problems with him. He was back in work the next day. That is an example of what can be achieved.
	I am not suggesting for one moment that larger companies, such as the one in my example, need any help by way of resources to offer such support, but I would like that approach to be spread across the business spectrum. Any good employer should help some of the most vulnerable in our society to achieve the maximum that they can achieve, which is obviously different according to each young person and each adult's situation.
	I welcome the Ministers to their new roles, and I thank their predecessors, who took a cross-party approach and met me to try to achieve such a solution. I do not believe that the issue is anything to do with party politics. If it is, it certainly should not be. We are talking about people's lives, and we are in the House to try to help. It is irrelevant which side of the House we sit on.
	How can we encourage businesses—small businesses might need some assistance through tax breaks and so on—to employ the most vulnerable and help them through? I am duty bound to mention an organisation, and as its patron I have a vested interest—the UK Autism Foundation, which was recently formed by a good friend of mine, Ivan Corea. I first met him when, as a Labour party candidate, he stood against me in a council election. Fortunately, I won, but you cannot have everything, can you? We became great friends, and through the work that he has done, he has been an inspiration. I have been able to help him, in some small way, in that work. The organisation is looking to raise funds through charitable causes to help with that very problem—in my own area and more widely. I also thank the National Autistic Society for its help and good work.
	I hope that Members will note that this subject is very dear to my heart, and I would like to further the cause by relating one other story from my constituency. Some residents complained to me about what they described as a nuisance neighbour, but nobody had spent any time with that gentleman or tried to find out what the problem was. I went round and found that this was not a nuisance neighbour, but an autistic person, living a lonely life on his own, who did not realise that his neighbours were being disturbed. We got them together and this person is now carrying out odd jobs for the very neighbours who had complained about him. That suggests that we sometimes need to look wider at the root causes of what might be happening when constituents complain at our surgeries.
	The current financial crisis, particularly its impact on small businesses and unemployment, provides another important issue. A small business might employ only one or two people, but one of them has to be laid off in order to cope with the crisis. A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a business, although I shall not name the business or the bank involved. It is a very seasonal business, with more than 80 per cent. of its trade coming over the Christmas period of December and January. Every year, it had from its bank a facility of £250,000 to fund the stock. Once the credit crunch started, however, the bank recalled the money, asking for it back "tomorrow". The money was put into stock. It was a question of either giving the keys of the business to the bank as it was not possible to pay the money back or of the bank letting the business trade through the Christmas period so that it could pay the money back afterwards, with any interest, leaving money to live on for the rest of the year. Fortunately, another bank stepped in, but notwithstanding all that the Government are doing to encourage the banks to give money to small businesses, the banks are simply not doing so. I would therefore like to ask the Minister to use his good offices to speak to his Treasury colleagues to emphasise how important this facility is for small businesses—and perhaps sometimes for big businesses, too. The banks should certainly use the money they are being given more wisely to help the very people who are suffering from these problems.
	Let me touch briefly on a number of other issues. I cannot remember who it was, but a Government Member spoke earlier about councils and the provision of social services packages— [Interruption.] Perhaps it was not even a Government Member, I am sorry. It is right that the problems differ from council to council. I know from own London borough of Redbridge about the wonderful work that is done, but it does come down to resources. If the amount of money is finite, a council has to live with it. There are only two ways of getting the money: either through the Government of the day whose resources are finite, or through the council tax—yet we know that many people cannot afford rises at the moment. That has to be measured.
	I am going to use some particular words now—I apologise to Ministers for not clearing these words with anyone—as perhaps some form of ring-fencing of moneys is needed— [Interruption.] Perhaps that is why I am on the Back Benches—  [Interruption.] I hear a sedentary intervention to the effect that I am apparently getting closer to the Front Benches.
	The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) spoke about people attending their constituency surgeries. My hon. Friend and I regularly write to the Minister. Everyone who visits my surgeries makes worthy cases, so I shall continue to write to the Minister. All these people genuinely want to be in work. I would go so far as to say that at my surgeries I have never come across anyone who does not want to work. The key thing is to help them into work where it is beneficial so that they enjoy a higher income and a better standard and quality of life than they could through not working. It is also important that they are given the ability to work, either through training or through the help that jobcentres can provide. It is beholden on all of us to try to help people back into work; otherwise, we should hang our heads in shame.

Andrew Selous: We hold this debate at an opportune time as, sadly, unemployment is increasing at its fastest rate for 17 years. I join my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) and for Henley (John Howell), and the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) in praising the work of Jobcentre Plus staff in trying to help our constituents to get back into work. I am also pleased that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) mentioned Tomorrow's People, because we should not forget those in what I call the not-for-dividend sector, who are also engaged in the very important work of trying to return our constituents to the labour market, or at least to get them more job-ready. The Opposition believe in a partnership approach between Jobcentre Plus and the not-for-dividend sector.
	At this difficult time, we must do everything possible to boost employer confidence to help businesses weather the economic conditions. However, we can deal with those serious problems only if we recognise their scale and act accordingly with a plan to make the necessary changes. I had hoped for a slightly more serious recognition of the scale of the problems from the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Burnley (Kitty Ussher) who opened the debate. Without such recognition, I fear that we will not see the scale of Government action needed. She said that things have gone relatively well over the past 10 years. I think that she said, "So far, so good." I am sure that she is aware that unemployment in her constituency has increased by 27 per cent over the past year alone, and is 6 per cent. higher than in 1997. I am not sure, therefore, what her constituents would make of her remarks.
	On 16 January, the Prime Minister boasted that this country had its best employment record in history. However, I wish to set out the real context of this debate, because I think that we have been lulled into a false sense of security about the situation in our labour market. The real level of UK unemployment is between 3 million and 3.5 million. How did I get to that figure? The International Labour Organisation unemployment count—the Labour party always used its figures when in Opposition—is 1.79 million, and David Freud, whom the Government have quoted frequently this afternoon, said that 1.7 million incapacity benefit claimants want to work and should be able to do so with the right support.
	In addition, 750,000 people are under-employed. We must not forget those who want full-time work and need more income, but who can only get part-time work. If the Government had recognised that, we could have had earlier and more urgent action on welfare reform involving personalised support to help people overcome barriers to work and creating a welfare system with a higher vision for the unemployed. It is frankly unacceptable that in some cases three or more generations of the same family have been lifelong benefit dependents when, with the right personalised support, jobs could have been found for them.
	This is at a time when many hundreds of thousands of jobs have gone to people who have come to this country from overseas. In 2006-07, and the first half of 2008, the number of people in employment who were born in the UK fell by 365,000. However, the number of migrant workers finding jobs in the UK has risen by 865,000. I take issue with the comments of the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd). I think that those are real concerns, and our constituents would be amazed if we did not mention them today—it was another thing that Under-Secretary did not mention, however. Those figures are an indictment of the Government's skills and welfare policies. Since 2003, a staggering 1.6 million national insurance numbers have been issued to non-European Union workers, which we can do something about.

Andrew Selous: I think that the hon. Gentleman and I are at one about the fact that, in an expanding labour market where there is genuine demand for many jobs, we can cope. It is a given between us that any advanced international economy will always have a certain amount of migration—that is, immigration and emigration. However, I ask him to consider the relationship between the hidden, real level of unemployment in this country—welfare—and the arguments about immigration that I have just set out. We need to think more seriously about the interrelationship between those three factors in a way that we have not yet seen.
	During oral questions only this month, we learned that in Newham, where the Olympic village is being built, 20,000 new national insurance numbers have been issued to foreign workers. In London as a whole, three times more new NI numbers have been issued to foreign workers than there are young people under 25 looking for work.
	On the subject of jobseeker's allowance, does the Minister intend to have any discussions with EU counterparts as to whether this country should carry on paying British JSA to EU nationals who have returned to their home countries and yet continue to claim? I think that many of our constituents will want to know about the signing-on criteria for those people. Will Ministers at least have a conversation with our European colleagues about that? I think that that is what many of our constituents would like.
	What do we need to do about the current situation? Like many other hon. Members, I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) for her excellent speech. She quite rightly raised the need to reform the housing benefit system, and to look at the whole issue of benefit traps, of which housing benefit is easily the most significant. I think that every Member here will have recognised similar stories from their own constituencies.
	The hon. Member for South Derbyshire also praised the hon. Lady's contribution, and I can tell her that my party is looking hard at this matter, as are the Government. It is long overdue for serious reform, but we need to remember that jobs are created through enterprise and entrepreneurship. They do not grow on trees; they grow because people who have a vision, provide a service or manufacture a good are able to provide employment.
	We need to look more seriously at alternatives. Recently, I have heard stories about some inner-city communities where there were very few formal jobs on offer. For example, one community, with some help from the local authority, was able to set up a new fast-food business. The people involved had worked out that a lot of money was going off their estate to fast-food businesses outside, and the new venture helped employ many people on the estate who were out of work. Another, similar example about which I heard recently involved the provision of social care for a community's elderly people. The people behind the scheme looked at the needs of the community and at those who did not have jobs, and managed to marry the two together. We need to keep enterprise and entrepreneurship at the heart of this debate if we are to deal with the problems that have been identified.
	Skills are also incredibly important, and they have not featured prominently enough in our comments this afternoon. Only 28 per cent. of British workers have qualified to apprentice, skilled craft and technician level whereas, if we cast our eyes across the continent, we see that the figures for France and Germany are 51 per cent. and 65 per cent. respectively. How can the Government reasonably expect our businesses to compete on the international stage when they so consistently fail to provide a suitably skilled work force?
	Earlier, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) and I had exchanges across the Dispatch Box about apprenticeships, so may I put his mind at rest? My party wants 100,000 additional apprenticeships a year, and we will make it easier for companies to run apprenticeships. We are proposing a £2,000 bonus for each apprenticeship at a small or medium-sized enterprise, and we shall also provide an additional £5 million to make it easier for small employers to come together and form group training associations. In that way they will be able to pool their resources and talents to create and run their own apprenticeship schemes. We also plan to introduce a business skills development fund to promote the non-apprenticeship skills that businesses need and employees want. We are really engaged with skills, training and the types of apprenticeship that will lead to sustained work, which is what we need to talk about.
	Welfare reform has featured throughout the debate. I have to chide the Government for making serious proposals only in their 11th year in office. The Conservative party made proposals before the Government did so. We want reforms in Jobcentre Plus so that, as soon as an individual enters the system, there is early assessment of their skills and the barriers to their working. We differ from the Government, who say that the work of private, not-for-dividend providers should begin only after 12 months. We think that the situation is too urgent to leave people without an early in-depth assessment.
	We want individualised support to help people get back to work. That theme has featured throughout the debate, expressed skilfully by the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry). My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) and the hon. Member for South Derbyshire spoke particularly movingly about autistic people—an issue about which my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) feels strongly, too.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Henley both on his excellent contribution and on recently joining the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, where I am sure he will make a valuable contribution. We shall note his warnings this afternoon about what the Netherlands has not got right.
	We expect our proposed employment programmes and welfare reforms to provide much better job-search facilities, specialised training to increase suitability for work, personalised career and recruitment advice, with interview training with real employers, and greater help in preparing CVs. We believe that the private and voluntary sectors have something to offer. The results for organisations such as Tomorrow's People, which was mentioned earlier—as was Debbie Scott—show that they have a good record. When we look at the research on the subject, there is no dispute about that. We believe in a partnership approach. Let us not get into stale, state versus private arguments, but simply look at how we can help people. We should find out what works and use it.
	We should talk about what we can do to help businesses, which are suffering at present. My party colleagues have often talked about the need for reform of the insolvency system, yet each time we have mentioned it the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions says, "There's no need—it's all been dealt with by the Government in an earlier Act." I shall explore briefly what we think we can do to help businesses keep people in work.
	We want to introduce an automatic stay of enforcement of debt against a company by its financial creditors, while the management stay in place and attempt to negotiate restructuring. We want priority funding for distressed companies. In America, unlike the UK, firms in chapter 11 can raise finance even after they have petitioned for bankruptcy. Lenders will advance them money in exchange for "super priority" over other unsecured creditors; in fact, there is a whole market for such rescue funding in the US that does not exist in the UK.
	No Member can want fundamentally decent businesses to go under if an extra financial lifeline could be thrown to see them through these hard times. I implore the Government to look again at those proposals. We will be happy to share our ideas; we may not have the last word on the matter but we really believe that there is something useful we can learn from the United States.
	Businesses are suffering, so we propose cutting the main rate of corporation tax from 28p to 25p and reversing the Government's planned increase in the small company rate from 20p to 22p. I find it incredible that in the current economic conditions the Government propose to increase the rate of corporation tax for small companies, which my colleagues will definitely oppose. Cutting corporate tax rates would be an important boost to the competitiveness of the British economy. We would pay for them by scrapping some of tax reliefs that businesses and accountants find difficult to administer, so there would be a simplicity advantage, too.
	Encouraging flexible working will be key in helping people to stay in work and to balance their caring commitments. We also want a great expansion of personalised budgets, to help people to get back into work. There have been big advances in that respect in the area of social care. We want to break down the departmental silos. We want to pool budgets, intervene early, and work with whole families, inter-generationally if necessary.
	Let me go back to where I began. We will not deal with problems of the scale that we face unless we are honest about recognising them. The hon. Member for Llanelli said that the UK economy had been vastly superior to that of our European neighbours in recent years. I wonder whether she knows that the United Kingdom's employment growth in 2007 was one of the lowest in Europe. That was in 2007, before our present difficulties began. The UK's employment growth was level with that of Estonia, and we beat only Hungary and Portugal. That is a pretty shocking international comparison.

Jonathan R Shaw: That is the clash: local services being accountable to the local council and also having levers of requirement from the centre. Those are the competing demands.
	I mentioned the local area agreements, but we are also seeing the advent of multi-area agreements. We may see local authorities all signing up to portability in a multi-area agreement, as my hon. Friend hopes. However, we have to resolve the clash of competing demands. One authority may choose to put a great deal more resources into social care than another, and the local electorate may support that. However, through the independent living fund we have committed to ensuring greater consistency across the piece. That is part of the debate as we go forward.
	I want to refer to a few of the comments made by other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott) referred to contracts and concern about specialist providers having part of the market. That is absolutely right. Within the structure, we need a system that allows entrepreneurialism to come through and small specialist providers to meet the needs of specific groups. I referred to a group in Croydon that I visited a couple of weeks ago, and many other providers offer such services. Earlier I mentioned Mind, the association with which we will set up a pilot for people with fluctuating conditions.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) mentioned fluctuating conditions and her conversation with the Secretary of State in acknowledging that the issue is difficult and we need to improve it vastly. I am certainly committed to ensuring that the issue gets the attention it deserves. I shall be closely watching the contracts in the roll-out and how they ensure that they do not cherry-pick and provide employment opportunities only for what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood referred to as the low-hanging fruit; the issue is also about those who are more difficult to place. That will be the test of our reforms.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), who is in her place, is the chair of the all-party group on autism and also has an interest in lupus. She referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling. She discussed the reduction in unemployment in her constituency between 1997 and 2007 and mentioned the partnership between the GMB and JCB in her constituency. We want such partnerships to go forward. That partnership and positive working were part of what made it possible for the company to land that £23 million order in Russia. We all welcome that. My hon. Friend also mentioned the all-party beer group, for which she has worked hard, and I shall pass on her remarks to my colleagues at the Treasury. Like many hon. Members, my hon. Friend referred to Jobcentre Plus and the staff who work there. I know that they will be grateful for hon. Members' comments.
	The Jobcentre Plus environment is very different from what it was during downturns in the past, when jobcentres had screwed-down seats and were places of despair with screens. If a person who had lost their job walked into a place like that, it did not uplift them or give them reason to be optimistic. We invested in Jobcentre Plus; the Conservatives did not. When we had the opportunity, we did it; when the Conservatives had the opportunity, they did not. That is the difference between us. Nailed-down seats were adequate for unemployed people in the '80s and '90s; they are not adequate for people under a Labour Government.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Burton also referred to the NHS and the impact of getting timely treatment, which is very important.
	The speech by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), who is not in his place, was a tour de force. In previous debates we have discussed angling, which, as I am sure many hon. Members are aware, is one of his loves. He talked about the young woman whom he met when he spent the day at the Jobcentre Plus in his constituency, who was bursting with energy and wanting to work. He also referred to people who did not take the opportunity to work, and spoke about not sending me letters and telling his constituents, if he felt they should be working, that they should go and get a job.
	Within any system, there will be people who choose to abuse it. It is particularly galling for someone on a low income to see someone abusing the system, because they are working hard and can see that someone is not playing by the rules. However, as part of this conversation we must recognise that many disabled people—they may have a mental health condition; they may have autism, or be a wheelchair user—want to get a job and have tried repeatedly to get one. We need to be careful with our language. Of course people should play by the rules, but we do not want to tar everyone with the same brush. People who are feeling fed up because they cannot get a job do not want us as Members of Parliament to do that, particularly at this time. We praise and salute people's efforts in that regard.
	The star of the evening, by universal acclaim, was my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who brought to the House a story about a young woman in her constituency. She highlighted the difficulties of getting housing, training and employment opportunities and talked about accelerating the interconnectivity that is required across the work of Government. We need to build more social housing. Earlier, I challenged the Conservatives to say which part of the programmes that we have announced since the downturn they would cut. One of those programmes brings forward additional social housing. I hope that they will support that additional housing, because it is needed in every constituency. In my own region, 200,000 people are on the waiting list. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has advised me that we are looking to the conclusions of the housing benefit review, which must include work incentives. She said that any proposals will be tested against the very good case that my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham brought to the House. I thank her for her contribution.
	The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Davies) talked about his support for the work ethic, and I think that the whole House would agree with him. He talked about the difficult times that his constituency has faced, and he made an important point about the relationship between someone who is not in work and their general practitioner. I can advise him that, as part of the employment support allowance programme, the Department has spoken to GPs. We have provided advice because it is easier for a GP to provide advice if he knows the structure of the new system, and GPs will receive that advice. The hon. Gentleman mentioned incapacity benefit, and people on that benefit will receive it at the current rate—it will stay the same.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) praised the minimum wage and the difference that it made in her constituency. She talked about the right to flexible working. If I recall correctly, the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire mentioned flexible working, but when the Opposition had the chance to vote for and support paid leave, they did not do it. The first instalment was four weeks' paid leave, and when they had the opportunity, the Opposition voted against it. When we introduced flexible working, Opposition Members chose to vote against it, but many of them have taken advantage of that policy. Again, when they had the chance to do something, they did not do it. We will say what we have done, and compare our records. That is completely legitimate.
	I heard the second half of the speech of the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell). I thank him for going to a Jobcentre Plus and for acknowledging the good work done there. It is much appreciated.
	My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) talked about flexibility in retirement, and referred to lollipop ladies and men—my late mother was a lollipop lady. He has made those points before, and it is the case that for some people in retirement, doing work makes a huge difference. As he said, it is good for the individual and for society as a whole. I will pass on the remarks that he made. Like so many things, the issue is about the balance between what the Government want to provide for the individual in society and how much expenditure we have. My hon. Friend referred to an autistic adult, and his story about Jobcentre Plus was not so positive. The mood of the debate generally reflected a positive view of Jobcentre Plus, but we obviously do not get it right every time, and we have to work harder.
	The hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) made an intervention on autism; last night, I was at the National Autistic Society, where I met people with autism who were in employment. The hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) talked about a young man in his constituency who is making a great contribution to the company where he works. He said that the young gentleman did not turn up to work one morning. That would have been out of his routine, and the employer understood that. In general, people with autism are always on time—they are never late. They start a task and they finish it, and they can operate at a higher level in many circumstances than any of us in this Chamber. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is a matter of ensuring that employers get that message. We have a programme called "Employ ability", and it promotes the employment of people with a disability. We need to consider real-life examples of that. He is also right to say that we all have a role to play. It is not just a matter of asking the Government what they can do—we can all play a role by talking to employers across our constituency.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak referred to the support and encouragement that she wants to see for lone parents. We are providing that, but it is reasonable, if we are providing a package of support through all our welfare reforms, and putting in that time and effort, to want people to engage with us. We are saying not that they have to get a job, but that they have to engage with us—get the necessary skills and training to go for a job, produce a CV and so on.
	The debate has been good and we have run through a range of issues. We will have differences, and Labour Members will continue to point out where the Conservative party failed, where we will succeed and where we need to try harder. However, the general tone of the debate reflected the consensus that, in the downturn, we need to help people and work with them so that, when the recovery comes, we are as match fit as possible to take advantage of it.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House has considered the matter of work and welfare.

Chris Bryant: I congratulate the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on securing this debate, because how Members' correspondence is dealt with is becoming an increasingly important aspect of our work and of how we relate to our constituents. When Stafford Cripps was a Member of Parliament back in the 1930s and '40s, he did not have to worry much about his constituents' letters, because he hardly ever got any. He went to his constituency four times a year and the brass band played when he arrived and when he left. Today, how public authorities deal with our constituents' letters, e-mails and telephone calls is an essential part of Members' work.
	I am intrigued in that when I refer to my constituents in the generic form, I usually mention Mrs. Jones of Blaen Llechau terrace, whereas the hon. Member for West Chelmsford refers to Mr. Snodgrass of Acacia avenue. That just shows the difference between our two constituencies. Surely the starting point must be the constituent and the constituent's needs, so if Mrs. Jones of Blaen Llechau terrace comes to see me, I presume that it is because she wants to see her Member of Parliament rather than the councillor, Assembly Member or whoever else. She may have seen all the others and not secured the outcome that she desires. Either way, she will presume a degree of confidentiality.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, many MPs make it clear in any interview with their constituents that the conversation is confidential and that any resulting correspondence will be treated in a fully confidential manner. Mrs. Jones might expressly not want the correspondence circulated to councillors or council officers, for example, because her complaint might be about them. For that matter, the councillor or officer might have a conflict of interest—it could be a relative, for instance—that would make it inappropriate to know about correspondence in the case raised with the MP.
	I should state that I had my own such issue when I was first elected in 2001. The local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taf, was run by Plaid Cymru, and purely for party political advantage the council leader explicitly said that all my correspondence would be circulated to all councillors of the different political party from my own who had any potential interest in it. The chief executive was instructed by the council leader to behave in what I believe was an entirely partisan fashion. Consequently, I asked for a ruling from the Speaker. It was in fact you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, who delivered it, saying:
	"Mr. Speaker has asked me to say that constituents who approach their Member of Parliament are entitled to expect that the issues raised will be dealt with in a confidential manner. Where the Member considers it appropriate to refer the issue to a local government officer, it is Mr. Speaker's view that the correspondence should remain confidential between the constituent, the Member and the local government officer to whom the case has been referred, unless specific permission to make it available to other parties has been granted by the constituent."—[ Official Report, 23 July 2002; Vol. 389, c. 885.]
	That is an important ruling, and it is important that all local authorities—and all other public organisations with whom Members might have to raise issues on behalf of their constituents—try to abide by it.
	The hon. Member for West Chelmsford is entirely right to say that a local authority, or any other body, would be wrong to assume that it is all right simply to circulate Members' confidential correspondence from a constituent to others within the organisation. If it wishes to do that, it should do so only if it has the specific permission of the constituent concerned. That is the case regardless of whether the issue concerned is party political or merely administrative, because this is about the confidentiality that is due to our constituents.
	The hon. Gentleman raised data protection, and various elements of the law in this regard interact with the privileges of being a Member and the responsibilities and duties that attach. One of them relates to the Data Protection Act 1998. The Act does not prohibit disclosures of personal data to third parties, but it regulates the circumstances in which that may be done—I think there is help here for the hon. Gentleman. Schedule 2 lists the conditions relevant for the purposes of processing any personal data, including the consent of both constituent and Member and the necessity of the processing. In the case of "sensitive personal data"—such as racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or sexual life—one or more of the conditions set out in schedule 3 must be met in order for the processing to be lawful, such as consent or if the processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of the data subject.
	The Data Protection (Processing of Sensitive Personal Data) (Elected Representatives) Order 2002—which I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows back to front—allows elected representatives to process sensitive personal data when dealing with requests from individuals without the need to seek explicit consent. This is important for most Members; although they might not realise that they are operating under this provision, they are doing so when they take a matter up on somebody else's behalf and they keep personal data. However, we cannot presume that all our constituents are intimately familiar with the provisions of the order—or even know of its existence. I, and many other Members, now do the following: when people come to our advice surgeries, we ask them to grant explicit permission for data to be kept and for us as Members to take up the case on their behalf. That also gives an additional legal protection for the Member, although, because of the 2002 order, it is not strictly necessary.
	The order also provides a condition allowing third parties, including Government Departments, to disclose sensitive personal data to elected representatives, but only to those who are acting at the request of the individuals concerned, and again without the need to seek explicit consent. It does not require them to do so. As I understand the hon. Gentleman's situation, it is not that these councillors have been approached by the constituents concerned; rather, the letters were disclosed to an individual councillor directly by the council officer, and as the hon. Gentleman says, it was probably a mistake rather than something done with a sense of malice.
	There is one other issue that has often been raised in the context of Members' constituency casework and the confidentiality that should attach to it, and which relates to the privilege issue: when Members speak in the House or in a Committee of the House, they have absolute privilege and what they say cannot be used in a court of law against them, as it were. Some have argued that that should also apply to all correspondence. A case was brought in 1958 that related to George Strauss—G.R. Strauss, as he is often known—a Labour Member of Parliament. He had written making certain allegations about a utilities company, and the question arose of whether his correspondence could be considered libellous. He argued that it could not, because it was merely something that he was writing to a Minister that he was subsequently going to say in Parliament. The House decided at the time that, in fact, he did not have absolute privilege in relation to that correspondence, and that is the formal position.
	However, when the issue was considered by Lord Nicholls' Committee in 1999, the view was firmly expressed that, although Members would not have the advantage of absolute privilege in their correspondence, they would none the less have two defences in law: first, that if their letter was very closely connected with the proceedings of this House, they would have a defence; secondly, that where there is no intention of malice, there would be a much more secure defence. I doubt whether any Member would want to say that, where there was an intention of malice on a Member's part in writing a letter or publishing a letter that somebody had sent to them, there should be a defence. That is why, historically, the House has stuck with the belief that there should be partial privilege when it comes to correspondence.
	In fact, there have not been many major such issues since then, and the House does take out insurance for any Member who might inadvertently have a case brought against them for libel by virtue of having sent a letter on to a third party. Many Members may at some point have had, for instance, constituents writing to them saying that they believe that abuse is taking place in a particular house, family or organisation. Not wishing to ignore the issue and wanting to take it very seriously, Members will sometimes write to the organisation concerned or to the police to refer that issue on. If they did so in a malicious way, merely to attack a third party when they knew that there was not a real case, I do not think that they should have the protection of the law; however, where they are pursuing a decent, honourable and common-sense approach, clearly they should have protection.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to the freedom of information issue, and he is right that there is such an issue. He will recall that the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) tabled a private Member's Bill—it did quite well in this House but not so well down the other end of the corridor—that sought completely to exempt Members' correspondence from freedom of information provisions, so that no public body could provide the correspondence of a Member as a result of a freedom of information request. I know that several Members, on both sides of the House, have raised this issue because they have had specific problems.
	As that Bill did not become law, the Justice Secretary has worked closely with the Information Commissioner to produce guidance on dealing with requests for Members' correspondence relating to constituents. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not seen it, but it makes it very clear that there is not a total exemption for Members' correspondence.
	However, clause 3 of that guidance says:
	"In particular, the importance of consultation with the MP, as a third party to the request, should always be remembered."
	In other words, if a freedom of information request has been made about some correspondence between a constituent, an hon. Member and an organisation, the Member of Parliament has to be asked first. The Member of Parliament will almost certainly, in nearly every case, provide clear reasons why the freedom of information request would be inappropriate. The guidance continues:
	"If an MP has written to a public authority passing on information from or relating to a constituent, the presumption should be that the information is not disclosed. Information is likely to be exempt under one or more specific exemptions."